the only maurybol' stat that is relevant is that the player that shot the most threes in the playoffs, around 115 only connected with 27% of them. Die by the three, go home fishing by the three. Mid range game flourished in D'antoni ball. 2009 rockets yao and luis were money from the midrange. I don't understand why now the word midrange is frowned upon by maury. It could be that just no one on this team can consistently hit a mid range jump shot.
no professional team just has their players let opponents score on them. don't be dumb. how many games do you think a big rotation of capela/anderson/ariza is going to win against aldridge/gasol/kawhi/lee?? we played great defense at many points in the playoffs. harden played amazing defense in several games vs the spurs. the personnel we had did not allow us to play effective defense despite putting in solid effort
I would say that they went totally the wrong direction in the off season (as I said when it was happening). Last years team was not terrible offensively. They were not as good as this year, but still a top ten offense. The issue was with the defense. So what did the team do? It added Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon, and Mike D'antoni as head coach. What the team needed was defensive oriented players that can hit threes at a decent clip and JVG as head coach. The offense with Harden surrounded by decent shooters is going to be better than average. The area where there was specific room for improvement was on the defense. That Morey was unable to do this would be a knock against him, but there was rumor that he wanted JVG and Les forced D'Antoni to be the hire, so I will reserve judgment.
LOL..... we had to hide James on the post because it is the only place he battles defensively. It put us in cross-matches across the line-up. Put him in the pick-and-roll and it is a nightmare. Make him rotate and it is an open shot. Make him watch ball and man and it is a back door. Please. You are embarrassing yourself by saying he played "amazing defense" at any point in his life.
the same moreyball that completely disregards the same mid range game that got mj and kobe a combined 11 rings? where they'd rather **** on the game and jack up threes and fts instead of adapting a little bit? until they make the right changes, or just tweaks, im keep calling it moronball
The only thing you can criticize Morey for is building a team around Jame Harden. But you can't really do that because James makes this team so much better. We weren't even going to the playoffs before James came to Houston. Moreyball works but it's really on the players to execute. No one could predict Harden would just check out of the playoffs like he did.
I agree 100%. When a team has adequate rim protection, its silly to turn down open mid- range shots to challenge a 7 footer contesting a rim finish that he KNOWS IS COMING.
Better than the average idiot, an 'idiot' being Top 50 Alltime player and a coach who went to the WCF and he was part time GM and fulltime TV analyst.
I'm glad that many of you will never become GM. We still have Rockets' fans defending this predictable, analytical-driven, garbage offense. The Spurs' and Warriors' offensive gameplan is light years ahead of the Rockets.
This is a great point, and the uncomfortable truth that most Houston fans kind of deny even to this day is that Harden is bad on defense not because of want of trying; He's just slow on his feet, that's all. People shouldn't be mocking Harden for his lack of D, because I truly believe he is physically incapable of playing good defense on the perimeter. It also impacts his game offensively as well, as Harden has little to no off-ball game in his arsenal. Very static on both ends of the floor, and I really do think he's just physically limited in that way. It is always more tempting to chalk up bad defense to lack of effort, because that means all you have to do is just try harder. That's not the case if the limitation is more physical than mental, and I can tell you that Harden's issue on defense is just not mental.
Spurs (game 5): Shooting 6-of-18 (33.3%) with James Harden as a primary defender including a combined 0-of-8 by Kawhi Leonard & LaMarcus Aldridge. L
LOL, are you honestly arguing that the stat you just posted indicates what "good" defense is? You stat boys riding Morey's nuts are the literal problem with this franchise moving on past the walrus. Does that stat say the quality of look the opponent had? Does that stat include blowing pick-and-roll calls and coverages, as James does literally every time? Does it include not hustling on defense, or reaching for a steal instead of getting back to the paint? Move on from cherry picked nonsense.
lololol his main role defensively was to prevent points in the post from whoever he was switched onto. he did it well. he was pretty effective at preventing dribble penetration and closing out throughout the series, just poor at off ball defense at times.
Spurs basically just do Moreyball on defense. Year after year they are the best defensive team against 3's and in the paint
Screw moreyball -- Let's experience some good getting back on defense again. I want to revert back to 90 points a game under JVG and playing significant minutes to guys like Clarence Weatherspoon and Ryan Bowen while we struggle to make the playoffs. I like it when our management over-values players out of desperation and gives terrible, long contracts to players who are so bad that we pay them well after their time with us. I also like not knowing how long players will be on our team or what our financial situation will be due to player options also given out of desperation. We can pray together for an MLE so maybe we can have a chance of making a move. Yeah, that's the good stuff. Morey's made our team younger, more athletic, more skilled, and more financially sound all at the same time while improving our record overall. If we are going to knock that -- a clearly better alternative must be presented. I understand he has made mistakes. But he's also done a lot of good.
It's pure bad luck that we have 1 superstar just as the league began to require 2 to compete and 3 (4?!) to make the finals. It's a 7 team league and we have a seat at the table so that's really all you can ask. Didn't we all agree 'Antoni would make the regular season interesting and flame out around the 2nd round? I don't understand the tantrums when that's exactly what happened. As for Morey ball, yeah - good teams can take away the 3 and the paint. Gotta shoot some f*cking jumpers on occasion.
The tantrums are the reactionary idiots who pretend that they thought this team would've been this good from the very beginning, and are now pretending that the Rockets did not exceed said expectations. And of course, Harden's disappearing act was the final turd in the punch bowl.
